Affective and coping responses to quarantine hotel stays - Wiley
1 INTRODUCTION
Tourists predominantly travel to have positive experiences that can provide multiple personal benefits (Filep & Pearce, 2014). Taking a trip can contribute to a person's health and well-being (Voigt & Pforr, 2013). Choosing a hotel to stay in and enjoying the hotel experience is one of the key aspects of the holiday experience. Memorable hotel experiences consist of the warm and welcoming attitudes of the staff, a comfortable room, the location of the accommodation, and the breakfast (Sthapit, 2019). Hotels provide guests with comfort and hospitality during their stay and deliver a pleasant experience (Wong & Yang, 2020). But what about situations where travellers are forced to quarantine in a hotel for a period of time; unable to leave and are guarded by government security forces for fear of spreading a deadly virus? What is the hotel experience like for them? The hotel experience, which is supposed to be pleasurable, may be confined, suffocating, forced and jail-like. According to the Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress (Ursin & Eriksen, 2004), this disconnect between the expectation and reality, the expectation of what travel should be like and travel during the COVID-19 pandemic, may be a stressor. Stress by itself is not necessarily a negative event and depends on how individuals appraise it. However, the stress response to situations like quarantining at a hotel has the potential to cause negative mental health consequences. COVID-19 has resulted in increased levels of distress and anxiety among many segments of society (Benham, 2021; Fan et al., 2021). This research examines the impact of quarantine hotel stays on guests' emotional and mental wellbeing.
With the outbreak and exponential spread of COVID-19, many travellers made immediate plans to return to their home country. All international airlines informed travellers that they were grounding their fleets. Many governments insisted on returning residents and citizens to self-isolate and then required compulsory quarantining for, in most cases, 14 days to contain the virus. This isolation often takes place at hotels that usually accommodate tourists. Despite being established as a safe haven and a place of refuge, there are reports in the media about quarantine hotels being dirty and serving sub-standard food (Smee & McGowan, 2020). Other reports note that the vulnerable, such as pregnant women and people with mental health issues, are more at risk due to a lack of fresh air, exercise, and medical services (Davey, 2020).
The scale of COVID-19 and the number of people in need of quarantine are unprecedented. Considering the pandemic is ongoing and there is a potential for future crises occurring requiring similar measures, research on quarantining at hotels is urgently required. This study, in particular, seeks to understand guests' emotional experiences during quarantine at a hotel. To understand this phenomenon, we undertake semi-structured interviews with travellers who had to undertake mandatory hotel quarantine stay due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research questions of this study are to understand hotel guests' affective response to quarantine, to assess the impacts of quarantine on the travellers' wellbeing, and determine the coping mechanisms these guests used throughout the stay. Recent research has covered the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on employees' work stress, well-being, and mental health (Yu et al., 2021) and how COVID-19 has impacted teachers (Fan et al., 2021), students (Benham, 2021) and residents more generally (C. Liu et al., 2021). However, there is scant research on the hotel guest experience during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The hotel quarantine and associated travel act as a stressor that is neither acute nor chronic. It is characterised by a set period of time known to the quarantined and typically lasts between 7 days and 4 weeks. An important aspect of COVID-19 travel, and especially quarantine, is the locus of control, as travellers find themselves in a highly regulated environment and confined spaces. As the findings of this study demonstrate, the extended period of time spent in the quarantine facilitates reappraisal of their situation by travellers who elicit a range of affective responses and employ a range of coping techniques. We applied the transactional model of stress and the Circumplex Model of Affect (Russell, 1980) to look at this phenomenon. In addition, various coping strategies employed by this study's participants assisted the understanding of how guests manage their well-being during a hotel quarantine (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). The study's results help inform better quarantine practices in the future. Our findings revealed that hotel guests experience a rollercoaster of emotions but are creative in overcoming some of the challenges by developing coping mechanisms during their stay (Mehrabian & Russell, 1974).
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
This research engages the literature of transactional theory of stress, affect and emotions, coping, and the hospitality sector's response to the pandemic. The transactional theory of stress provides the overarching approach to examining stress in a hotel quarantine environment. The theory suggests individuals appraise a stressor in their environment and have affective responses to it. Thus, affective responses (i.e. emotions, moods, and feelings) play an important role in this situation. To maintain psychological well-being, individuals then adopt coping strategies that address the problem and/or the affective response to that problem. The literature review is structured accordingly by introducing the transactional theory of stress and discussing, in detail, affective response and coping strategies as the constructs most relevant to this study.
2.1 Transactional theory of stress
Stress can be viewed as a relationship between a person and their environment, wherein the person appraises the environment and enacts a coping mechanism in order to manage problems that cause distress and sustain positive well-being (Folkman, 2013). Stressors are the causes of stress. They create non-specific (either negative or positive) stress responses to the anticipation or experience of encountering demands in a goal-related context (Crum et al., 2020). Ursin and Eriksen (2004) in their Cognitive Activation Theory of Stress suggested that the disconnect between reality and expectation stimulates stress. Crum et al. (2020) suggested that stress is not necessarily detrimental to one's life and can enhance performance and well-being. Various models of stress highlight the importance of cognitive processes in valuation and response to stress (J. J. Liu et al., 2019), amongst them, are the biopsychosocial model (Seery, 2013), mindsets model (Crum et al., 2013) and transaction theory (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
While the general traits are similar across the models, this study applied Lazarus and Folkman's (1984) transactional theory of stress, which focuses on cognitive appraisal. It is also predominantly concerned with the interaction between the environment (the stressor) and the individual being affected. Affective, especially emotional, responses to stress play an important role within Lazarus' work, thus fitting the focus of the present study.
Cognitive appraisal can be used to explain how individuals assess, emote and respond to their external environment (Lazarus, 1998). The way individuals appraise the same situation may result in different emotional responses (Roseman, 1991). There are generally three components to this overall model: appraisal, emotions, and the coping response (Scherer et al., 2001). Cognitive appraisal of stress generally involves individuals assessing the following dimensions: perceptions of threat, challenge, centrality, control-by-self, control-by-others, and uncontrollable-by-anyone (Gabrys et al., 2018; Peacock & Wong, 1990, 1996). Individuals also have affective responses to the stressors which impact their moods, feelings, and emotions (J. T. Larsen & McGraw, 2011). Coping strategies are employed to deal with the catalyst for the stress response, with the arising emotions or both the stress response and emotions. These three components of a stress model, that is appraisal, affective response, and coping, are not sequential and occur in parallel (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984).
Following Lazarus and Folkman (1984), Peacock and Wong (1990) developed a more specific stress appraisal measure (SAM) that identified several broad dimensions of cognitive appraisal of stressors, which is still applied in studies on the topic of stress appraisals (Gabrys et al., 2018; Zacher & Rudolph, 2021). Transactions between an individual and the stressor include a primary and secondary appraisal. According to Peacock and Wong (1990), primary appraisal involves the identification of a threat, challenge, and centrality. Threat refers to the possible loss to the individual that might be expected but not unavoidable due to the situation while loss refers to the perception that the damage has already occurred and cannot be changed as a result of the situation. Appraising the situation as a challenge suggests there is potential for positives or growth from the experience. Centrality can be thought of as an individual's assessment of the impact that an experience will have on them (Jordan & Prayag, 2021). Perceptions of situational control constitute a secondary appraisal. Henderson et al. (2012) referred to controllability as the appraisal of who can influence the outcome of any given situation. Individuals can appraise the situation as being controlled by themselves, controlled by others, or unable to be controlled by anyone (Peacock & Wong, 1996).
2.2 Affect and emotions
Affective responses to the environment, of which emotions are a part, are centrally positioned in social psychology. Affect and emotions are extensively discussed in the literature on stress. Catalysts of stress response, not only evoke actions to resolve a stressful situation, but also a range of emotions, moods, and feelings (Lazarus, 1998). Yet, there is little agreement on the definition and categorisation of affect and emotions (Keltner & Lerner, 2010). While most literature discusses the term 'emotions', Russell (2003) focused on the 'core affect'. This term includes longer-lasting moods that are not necessarily attributable to a specific event, as well as emotional episodes as reactions to changes in the environment.
Emotions generally have three elements: a subjective experience, an expressive component, and physiological arousal (Li et al., 2015). Conceptually, there have been two main approaches to researching emotions; the basic emotions approach and the dimensional approach (Grandjean et al., 2008). The dimensional approach proposes that each basic emotion represents an anchor on the same continuum (Gunes et al., 2011). One of the most cited models is Russell's (1980) Circumplex of Affect (Figure 1), where the two major dimensions used to distinguish affective responses are valence and arousal (Li et al., 2015). 'Valence' refers to the degree of pleasantness (positive or negative) and 'Arousal' measures the degree of activation of an affect, anchored by active (high arousal) and passive (low arousal). The dimensional approach has been commonly used as a way to analyse emotions due to being intuitive and being able to distinguish emotions (R. J. Larsen & Diener, 1992).
The Circumplex Model of Affect. Source: Adapted from Russell (1980)
Russell's (1980) approach to understanding affect, based on two dimensions, has been used in a wide variety of contexts. Predominantly, these studies focus on the affective response of customers to elements of servicescape. Some studies refer to Russell and Mehrabian (1977) three-dimensional pleasure-arousal-dominance (PAD) model, which adds dominance as a third dimension to valence and arousal described earlier. Dominance-submissiveness describes whether an individual feels controlling and dominant or controlled and submissive. Most studies however focus only on pleasure and arousal. For example, Eerola and Vuoskoski (2011) used the dimensional model of affect to understand emotions to music. In the business and consumer behaviour arena, the PAD model has been used as a way to examine store atmosphere and purchasing behaviour (Donovan et al., 1994), word-of-mouth intentions of mobile app users, and responses to television commercials (Morris et al., 2009), demonstrating its wide applicability. In the tourism and hospitality field, Leong et al. (2020) used the PAD constructs as part of their model to analyse creative cuisines while Kaminakis et al. (2019) employed these dimensions to look at how human-made environments affect customer-employee interactions in restaurants. The purpose of the aforementioned studies is to identify how consumers respond to elements of the servicescape, for example, ambiance, interior design, food presentation, music. The findings of these studies suggest how the servicescape can be modified to elicit the desired mood from consumers, for example, excitement or calmness.
While Li et al. (2015) argued that tourism scholars have long studied the role of emotions experienced by tourists before planning, during, and after their trip, Hosany (2012) countered that research into the emotional aspects of travel remains largely underexplored. Previous research into tourists' emotions has focussed on positive feelings such as joy, love, and positive surprise (Hosany & Gilbert, 2010), yet there is scant research into negative emotions while travelling. This research contributes to the studies of affect in travel beyond positive emotions.
2.3 Coping
Being forced to stay in a quarantine hotel after taking an international flight can be stressful, and it also can trigger anxiety (Wong & Yang, 2020). Coping strategies help moderate an individual's physical and mental wellbeing when confronted with negative or stressful situations (Endler & Parker, 1990). Since the 1980s there has been a plethora of research into how individuals deal with stressful situations (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984): changing the situation that caused the stress; re-interpreting the situation that resulted in the stress, and managing the emotional response to the stressful situation. These coping strategies include both cognitive and behavioural responses. Behavioural responses attempt to address catalysts for the stress response and change the environment. Emotional responses focus on how an individual feels about the situation that causes stress. Re-appraisals, as a strategy to change one's view or mindset regarding the stress-causing environment, can assist in addressing both emotions and the problem that causes stress. For example, it can alleviate a feeling of helplessness and stimulate active solutions to a problem (Crum et al., 2020; Stanisławski, 2019).
The body of literature traditionally identified two main approaches to coping: problem-focused coping and emotional-approach coping (Stanton et al., 2000). Problem-focused coping occurs when individuals' responses modify or eliminate the issue creating the stress. These strategies are action-orientated and have a cognitive element, for example, generating options to solve the problem, evaluating the costs and benefits of different options, and taking action to solve the problem (Baker & Berenbaum, 2007). This includes planning (deliberations on how to solve a problem), active coping (taking action to address the stressor), seeking social support (asking for advice or information), and suppression of competing activities (putting aside other activities to better cope with the problem).
Emotion-focused coping aims to manage the emotional distress of stressful situations (Lazarus & Folkman, 1984). Emotion-focused coping involves both processing emotions (e.g., 'I acknowledge my emotion') and expressing emotions (e.g., 'I allow myself to express my emotions'). Emotion-focused coping strategies include denial of the problem, positive comparisons, acknowledging and venting emotions, positive reinterpretation of events, and seeking out emotional support (Baker & Berenbaum, 2007).
Stanisławski (2019) suggested the two approaches, namely problem-focused and emotion-focused, were non-exclusive and could be applied simultaneously. Stanisławski (2019) introduced a coping circumplex model which includes eight specific coping styles (see Figure 2). These can be defined by either high or low engagement with either the problem or the emotions. For example, efficiency acknowledges thoughts and feelings about the stressor, which assists taking action to resolve the problem. Conversely, helplessness is a maladaptive coping strategy that avoids the problem and internalises negative emotions such as self-blame. Similar to Stanisławski (2019), Orgilés et al. (2021) considered that various coping strategies can be used simultaneously. In the context of youth coping with a COVID-19 health crisis, they group the strategies as being task-oriented (e.g., highlighting the pros of being at home), emotion-oriented (e.g., expressing feelings), or avoidance-oriented (e.g., acting as if nothing is happening). Moreover, Lorente et al. (2021) study of nurses' responses to stress during the COVID-19 pandemic followed Stanisławski's (2019) model and suggested that different coping strategies could take place simultaneously and concurrently.
The coping circumplex model. Source: Stanisławski, 2019
2.4 Hotels and quarantines
There is emergent literature specifically related to the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the hospitality sector. Wong and Yang (2020) investigated hotel guest experiences of quarantine in a quantitative study. They identified anxiety as a major issue, which can be mitigated by the quality of service provided to the quarantined guests. Guests' health status and the length of stay are important factors affecting anxiety. In the post-COVID-19 world, hotels will need to install visible sanitising equipment (hand sanitizers at the entry, staff wearing masks and gloves) and implement health and safety practices (social distancing, reduced capacity of customers, frequent deep cleaning of surfaces in public areas) to reassure guests (Gursoy & Chi, 2020).
Isolation and quarantine due to the outbreak of infectious diseases have long been subjects of discussion in the medical literature. Concerns regarding the effectiveness of isolation and quarantine have been reignited during severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS). Some health professionals suggested quarantines are not effective as they require healthy people to isolate and require levels of compliance that are hard to achieve (Mandavilli, 2003). Quarantine imposes movement restrictions on individuals thus it also represents an ethical issue of limiting one's liberties and rights (Upshur, 2003). Besides a quarantine's effectiveness and ethical issues, the medical literature has raised concerns regarding its impact on mental health (Brooks et al., 2020). For example, Hawryluck et al. (2004) reported that symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder and depression were observed in 28.9% and 31.2% of survey respondents who experienced quarantine during SARS. Longer stays and knowledge of direct exposure to the virus increased the prevalence of the symptoms.
The COVID-19 literature points out the effectiveness of quarantine to curb the infection spread (Chiew et al., 2020). Facility-based quarantine is deemed to be more effective than an at-home quarantine (Chen et al., 2020). Previous experience of dealing with pandemics and imposing quarantine and border restrictions helped governments respond to the COVID-19 crisis. Jordan-Martin et al. (2020) discuss the COVID-19 isolation hotels programme in New York. This programme aims to address the needs of those with inadequate housing (e.g., homeless, living in crowded housing) rather than travellers during the pandemic. The programme uses a tiered system of the provision of clinical services during the stay depending on the status of guests (i.e. COVID-positive, negative, pending test results, and compromised health). The hospital environment is emulated to reduce the risk of transmission. The study reported that isolation hotels gradually expanded the services they provide to include cable TV, indoor and outdoor recreational opportunities, and various food choices. Mandatory COVID-19 quarantine has also impacted the mental health of the quarantined with regard to emotional distress (Xin et al., 2020). Thus, it is important to integrate mental health promotion into quarantine measures. It is noteworthy that the risk of anxiety and depression does not only affect hotel guests, but also employees of quarantine hotels (Teng et al., 2020).
The above literature review establishes hotel quarantine as a stressor that involves appraisal and reappraisal of the situation, affective response, and various coping strategies. Interventions may be needed to reduce the risks of mental health issues related to anxiety and depression. The hospitality literature has started to cover the issue of the health and safety of hotel employees during the pandemic and what it takes to make them feel safe (Wong & Yang, 2020). However, there is little research on the quarantine guest experience, their appraisal of their situation, guests' affective responses to the quarantine, and how they cope during their enforced stay. This research examines hotel quarantine as a stressor with a pre-determined time length, its influence on travellers' emotional state, and coping techniques travellers employ to manage the stressful environment.
3 METHODS
A qualitative research methodology was chosen due to the exploratory nature of this research and the research objectives. The study followed an inductive design, as the research participants were asked broadly about their experiences of travel and staying at quarantine hotels. Stress, moods and emotions, and coping strategies emerged as the main topics discussed by the participants. The data was collected through in-depth interviews conducted online using zoom software. There were two reasons for this. The first reason was that the researchers were in different geographical locations from the participants. Additionally, for those participants who were in the same location as the researchers, physical distancing rules limited any possibility of meeting for a face-to-face in-depth interview. Both the researcher and the participants had been using video teleconferencing software for work and/or leisure. There were no perceived hesitancies in conducting the research among the participants. No one besides the research and the participants were present during the interviews. In-depth interviews allowed research participants to freely express their experiences of travel during the pandemic and especially of their stay at a quarantine hotel. Since little was known about such experiences, the interviews helped researchers identify what were the important aspects of these experiences, especially differentiating them from standard leisure travel.
A purposeful sampling and a snowballing approach were employed to identify potential research participants. A potential participant needed to be recently (1–2 days) out of a hotel quarantine to ensure the recall of quarantine experience with little retrospective distortion (Colombo et al., 2020), Thus, initial participants were identified by the first author through personal connections, as this was the most efficient way to identify suitable research participants. Considering the first author's familiarity with some of the participants, several personal background questions did not need to be asked, as the researcher was already aware of this information, such as occupation. Cases where the research participants knew the researcher well, which could potentially lead to hesitancy to disclose some details regarding their quarantine experience due to social desirability bias. However, this was not evident to the first author, as participants did not hesitate to discuss quarantine challenges including relationships with their family members. Given the unprecedented experience of having to quarantine, it was felt participants were eager to describe their experiences to the researcher. Participants were aware the research is undertaken for academic purposes only. The first interview took place on 11 April 2020. By 21 May 2020, sixteen (16) interviews had been completed. Four additional quarantine hotel guests were identified through personal networks, however, these potential participants did not respond to an email invitation to participate in the research. At that stage, a preliminary analysis done by researchers through familiarisation with the interview transcripts and initial coding of information suggested data saturation has been reached as no new themes were emerging in the later interviews. Thus, new interviews were no longer conducted. No repeat interviews were required. All interviews were conducted by the first author who is a male, holds a Ph.D., and is a professor at a public university with 14 years of research experience. The average length of the interviews was 32 min. The characteristics of the sample are provided in Table 1.
| Participant | Age | Gender | Nationality | Occupation | Origin city, country | Destination city, country | Quarantine hotel star rating | Quarantine group |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 40 | Female | Philippines | Agriculture lecturer | Apia, Samoa | Cebu, Philippines | 2 | Self |
| 2 | 44 | Male | Australia | Macroeconomic analysis advisor | Suva, Fiji | Canberra, Australia | 5 | Self |
| 3 | 44 | Female | Australia | Housewife | Tangerang, Indonesia | Perth, Australia | 5 | Three children aged 16, 13, and 10 |
| 4 | 45 | Male | Australia | Financial sector supervision advisor | Suva, Fiji | Melbourne, Australia | 5 | Family of 5 (wife, children aged 6, 8, and 9) |
| 5 | 49 | Female | UK | Housewife | Auckland, New Zealand | Nadi, Fiji | 5 | With husband |
| 6 | 38 | Female | Australia | Housewife | Suva, Fiji | Brisbane, Australia | 4 | Family of 4 (husband, children aged 4 and 8) |
| 7 | 60 | Male | Australia | Coordinator at development agency | Suva, Fiji | Sydney, Australia | 4 | Self |
| 8 | 39 | Female | Fiji | Human resources business partner | Sydney, Australia | Nadi, Fiji | 4 | With daughter aged 16 |
| 9 | 36 | Male | Fiji | Pilot | Los Angeles, USA | Nadi, Fiji | 5 | Self |
| 10 | 32 | Male | Fiji | Pilot | Sydney, Australia | Nadi, Fiji | 4 | Self |
| 11 | 42 | Female | Australia | Housewife | Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia | Perth, Australia | 5 | With three sons aged |
| 12 | 31 | Male | Australia | Mining consultant | Vancouver, Canada | Melbourne, Australia | 5 | Self |
| 13 | 47 | Male | UK | Computer programmer | London, UK | Sydney, Australia | 5 | Self |
| 14 | 30 | Male | Fiji and New Zealand | Assistant lecturer in real estate | Suva, Fiji | Auckland, New Zealand | 4.5 | Self |
| 15 | 56 | Male | Australia | Head of credit of a commercial bank | Suva, Fiji | Brisbane, Australia | 4 | Self |
| 16 | 49 | Male | UK | Tennis coach | London, UK | Cebu, Philippines | 2 | Self |
Six of the 16 participants were female. The age of the participants varied from 31 to 60 years of age. Seven of the participants departed from Fiji to be quarantined elsewhere. Australia, Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Samoa, and the UK were other points of departure. Nine participants were quarantined in Australia in the following cities: Brisbane (2), Canberra (1), Melbourne (2), Sydney (2), and Perth (2). Other destinations included Fiji (5), the Philippines (2), and New Zealand (1). Except for the Philippines where quarantined participants were required to pay for their own quarantine hotel stay, the Governments of the respective countries required hotel guests to stay in designated four- or five-star internationally branded hotels. Ten of the 16 participants were quarantined by themselves, one participant quarantined with her husband, and the remaining five participants were quarantined with their complete family or with their children. None of the research participants were infected with COVID-19.
Potential participants were initially contacted by email and invited to ta...
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